Spatial Planning + Best Practices + European Territorial ... · area of spatial planning, best practices have been developed under a range of European programmes and projects. The

DRAFT paper presented at the conference ‘Innovation for Good Local and Regional Governance – A European Challenge’, Enschede, 2-3 April 2009

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Spatial Planning + Best Practices + European Territorial Cooperation = Convergence?

Dr Dominic Stead

Delft University of Technology

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies

PO Box 5030

2600 GA Delft

The Netherlands

t: +31-15-2783005

f: +31-15-2783450

e: [email protected]

Abstract

Spatial planning, in both western and eastern Europe, has recently undergone reform in response to the

common challenges of globalization, sustainable development, economic competitiveness, European

integration, economic reforms and demographic change. A diversity of cross-border and inter-

territorial cooperation and networking initiatives (e.g. INTERREG programmes) has also helped to

influence the processes of reform by exposing policy-makers to policies and practices in other

contexts. Both the current and previous European Territorial Cooperation programmes are in fact

founded on the assumption that best practices are equally applicable and effective in another setting,

and that the development and dissemination of best practice will help to lead to improvements in

policy and practice in other countries, regions or cities. This paper argues that such a belief is too

simplistic.

Despite the common challenges facing almost all spatial planning systems, there are also deeply

embedded differences between European countries in terms of political and administrative cultures

and structures, particularly between north and south and western and eastern Europe. These

differences call into question the applicability of the direct transposition of ‘best practices’ and

potentially put a brake on the idea of the ‘Europeanisation’ and convergence of spatial planning.

Indeed, changes to spatial planning systems based on experience from elsewhere but which do not

address the underlying cultures may reduce the local relevance and effectiveness of the formal

planning system. The reality is that best practices have a more limited role in shaping national spatial

planning systems: other influences are more important. This is particularly true when considering the

transfer of best practices between ‘new’ and ‘old’ member states (east and west for short), where the


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social and economic situation, as well as the institutional frameworks, are often very different in the

‘borrowing’ and ‘lending’ countries.

This paper focuses on the implications and importance of best practices for spatial planning. The paper

begins by reviewing recent European policy documents on cross-border and inter-territorial

cooperation, and examines the importance these documents attach to the identification and

dissemination of best practices. Next, the paper identifies some of the main reasons why governments

have been increasingly active in developing (or claiming) innovative policies that represent best

practice: reasons include image, prestige, power and funding. The paper then reviews literature on

how best practices are actually viewed and used by government officials, and examines the extent to

which best practices are influential in changing the direction of policy. This paper examines the extent

to which best practices in spatial planning are transferable, especially between eastern and western

Europe.

Introduction – best practices in European policies and programmes

“To what extent are… policy instruments, which have proved to be successful in one urban area,

transferable to another, given that the latter has a different historical, cultural or political

background, or is in another phase of economic development? Are there ‘best practices’ which are

convertible like currencies? If not, how and to what extent must one take account of specific

circumstances?” (Güller, 1996: 25)

The concept of best practice (or good practice) is rife in European policies and programmes. In the

area of spatial planning, best practices have been developed under a range of European programmes

and projects. The underlying belief is that identifying, promoting and disseminating good practice will

help contribute to transnational learning and lead to improvements in policy and practice. This paper

questions this underlying belief: it examines the validity of European best practices, particularly given

the fact that there are huge differences in the technological, economic, political or social situation

between countries in Europe, and it investigates the role of European best practices in influencing

policy-making processes. The paper then outlines some conclusions in the form of directions for future

activity in the area of best practice. The paper begins by considering some of the key European

policies and programmes that promulgate the development or use of best practice in areas related to

spatial planning.

Recent attention to best practice in European policy documents is undeniably high. Frequent mention

of best practice can be found in diverse European policies relevant to spatial planning: examples


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include the 1999 European Spatial Development Perspective, or ESDP, (CSD, 1999), the 2001 White

Paper on European Governance (CEC, 2001), the 2005 revised sustainable development strategy

(CEC, 2005), the 2006 Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment (CEC, 2006), the 2007 Green

Paper on Urban Mobility (CEC, 2007), the 2007 Leipzig Charter on Sustainable Urban Cities (German

Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, 2007b) and the 2007 Territorial Agenda of

the European Union (German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, 2007b).

The ESDP states that ‘the exchange of good practices in sustainable urban policy… offers an

interesting approach for applying ESDP policy options’ (CSD, 1999: 22). The 2001 White Paper on

European Governance highlights the role of the ‘open method of coordination’ (OMC) as a key factor

in improving European governance, stating that OMC involves ‘encouraging co-operation, the

exchange of best practice and agreeing common targets and guidelines’ (CEC, 2001: 21). The 2005

revised sustainable development strategy considers ‘ the exchange best practices’, together with the

organization of events and stakeholder meetings and the dissemination of new ideas, as important

ways of mainstreaming sustainable development (CEC, 2005: 25). The 2007 Green Paper on Urban

Mobility asserts that ‘European towns and cities are all different, but they face similar challenges and

are trying to find common solutions’ (CEC, 2007: 1) and argues that ‘the exchange of good practice at

all levels (local, regional or national)’ (p5) provides an important way of finding common solutions to

these challenges at the European level. The Leipzig Charter on Sustainable Urban Cities (German

Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, 2007a: 7) calls for ‘a European platform

to pool and develop best practice, statistics, benchmarking studies, evaluations, peer reviews and

other urban research to support actors involved in urban development’. The Territorial Agenda of the

European Union contains a whole annex of examples of ‘best practices of territorial cooperation’

(German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, 2007b).

The EU’s 2006 Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment (CEC, 2006) has perhaps the most to

say about best practices concerning spatial planning and development. In fact, the exchange of best

practices forms one of the four main actions of the strategy. The strategy states that ‘many solutions

already exist in certain cities but are not sufficiently disseminated or implemented’ and that ‘the EU

can best support Member States and local authorities by promoting Europe’s best practices,

facilitating their widespread use throughout Europe and encouraging effective networking and

exchange of experiences between cities’ (CEC, 2006: 3). The document argues that ‘improving local

authorities’ access to existing solutions is important to allow them to learn from each other and

develop solutions adapted to their specific situation’ and highlights that ‘the Commission will offer

support for the exchange of good practice and for demonstration projects on urban issues for local

and regional authorities’ (CEC, 2006: 6).


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Examples of best practice in European research programmes and cooperation initiatives are

widespread. Examples include programmes funded under the European Regional Development Fund

(e.g. INTERACT, ETC/INTERREG, URBACT), pre-accession funding programmes (e.g. IPA – the

successor of Phare, ISPA and SAPARD), research programmes, environmental programmes (e.g.

LIFE+) and rural development programmes (e.g. LEADER+, which ran from 2000-2006). The

European Research Framework Programme (and particularly the Energy, Environment and

Sustainable Development thematic programme of the Fifth Framework Programme – EESD) has led

to a number of projects that have developed best practice guides/comparisons concerning spatial

planning and governance (see Table 1 for an indicative list of examples). The extent to which these

projects have considered the applicability of best practices in another context and the transferability of

these examples, especially to new member states of the European Union, has however been rather

limited.

Attention to best practice at the global level is also high. Activities concerning best practices

(primarily in the form of publications) can for example be found within the OECD and the World

Bank. These include the OECD report ‘Best Practices in Local Development’ (OECD, 2001) and the

World Bank working paper entitled ‘Local Economic Development: Good Practice from the European

Union (and beyond)’ (World Bank, 2000). UN-Habitat supports the Best Practices and Local

Leadership Programme, ‘dedicated to the identification and exchange of successful solutions for

sustainable development’ (UN-Habitat, 2008) and aims to ‘raise awareness of decision-makers on

critical social, economic and environmental issues and to better inform them of the practical means

and policy options for improving the living environment… by identifying, disseminating and applying

lessons learned from best practices to ongoing training, leadership and policy development activities’

(UN-Habitat, 2008).

These various European and global policies, programmes and initiatives all serve to illustrate that the

development and dissemination of best practice is widely considered to be an effective means of

promoting policy transfer and learning. According to Bulkeley (2006: 1030), the assumption that the

dissemination of best practice can lead to policy change ‘has become an accepted wisdom within

national policies and programmes, as well as in international arenas and networks’. The logic seems

to be that by providing information or knowledge about specific initiatives, other individuals and/or

organisations will be able to undertake similar projects or processes, or learn from the experience,

which will lead to policy change (ibid). Nevertheless, despite all the attention on best practice in

policies, programmes and projects, little is known about the ways in which best practices are produced

and used, and their role in processes of policymaking.


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Table 1. Selected examples of European projects containing best practices on spatial planning

Project title Funding Programme Description

AGORA – Cities for People FP5 EESD Identifies best practice for urban planning

and design. Studies the transferability/

applicability of best practice.

COST Action C8 – Best practice in

sustainable urban infra-structure

ESF-COST Programme Identifies best practices concerning

sustainable urban infrastructure.

COST Action A26 – European city

regions in an age of multi-level

governance

ESF-COST Programme Identifies best practice examples for

reconciling competitiveness and social

cohesion in different contexts.

GRIDS – Best practice guidelines for

instruments of regional development

and spatial planning in an enlarged EU

INTERREG IIIC West Produces best practice guidelines for

Regional Development Strategies and

Spatial Plans.

LASALA – Eco-efficient urban

management and new models of urban

governance

FP5 EESD Identifies best practices in urban

governance and eco-efficient urban

management.

RESCUE – Regeneration of European

sites in cities and urban environments

FP5 EESD Identifies examples of best practice in the

regeneration of ‘brownfield’ land in

Europe.

SCATTER – Sprawling cities and

transport: from evaluation to

recommendations

FP5 EESD Identifies best practices for managing

urban sprawl in western European cities.

SELMA – Spatial deconcentration of

economic land use and quality of life

in European metropolitan areas

FP5 EESD Produces a best practice guide based on

collective experience in dealing with

deconcentration of economic land use.

SURE – A time-oriented model for

Sustainable Urban Regeneration

FP5 EESD Collects best practices of urban renewal

policies.

TRANSLAND – Integration of

transport and land-use planning

FP4 Transport Identifies best practice in the field of

integrating transport and land-use planning,

and analyses their transferability, including

legal and regulatory requirements.

TRANSPLUS – Transport planning,

land use and sustainability

FP5 EESD Identifies best practices for integrating land

use and transport planning.

URGE – Development of Urban Green

Spaces to Improve the Quality of Life

in Cities and Urban Regions

FP5 EESD Identifies good practice for developing

urban green spaces and improving the

quality of life in cities and urban regions.


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The validity of European best practices

A common assumption behind best practices is that they are equally applicable and effective in

another setting. However, the large number and diversity of European member states, where there are

substantial differences in governance, administrative cultures and professional capacities, make such

an assumption questionable. This assumption is particularly questionable in the case of transposing

best practices between dissimilar countries, such as from west to east Europe (‘old’ to ‘new’ member

states of the EU), where the social and economic situation, as well as the institutional frameworks, are

often very different in the ‘borrowing’ and ‘lending’ countries. Nevertheless, examples can be found

where countries in eastern Europe have used best practices from western Europe as a way of trying to

catch up politically and/or economically (Rose, 1993). Randma-Liiv (2005: 472) states that ‘policy

transfer has become a fact of everyday life in various countries’ and that ‘post-communist countries

have been especially willing to emulate the West’.

Various factors, including European initiatives for research, territorial cooperation and development

assistance (see above), have inspired these processes of policy transfer from west to east Europe.

Politicians often see policy transfer as the quickest solution to many problems without having to

reinvent the wheel (Rose, 2005; Tavits, 2003). In eastern Europe, policy transfer is frequently regarded

as a means of avoiding newcomer costs: using the experience of other countries is cheaper because

they have already borne the costs of policy planning and analysis, whereas creating original policies

requires substantial financial resources (Randma-Liiv, 2005). The availability of financial resources to

support these processes of west-east policy transfer is of course another (and perhaps the most

important) factor behind these processes taking place, especially where funding from other levels is

limited. However, as the OECD report ‘Best Practices in Local Development’ recognises, best

practices is not without its complexities and challenges because ‘the possibilities of what can be

achieved by policy may vary between different areas and different times’ and because there is ‘no

single model of how to implement local development or of what strategies or actions to adopt’

(OECD, 2001: 29).

There are also limitations of best practice in terms of the ability to transfer sufficient detailed

knowledge and information in the form of case-study reports, policy documents, policy guidance notes

or databases. In effect, best practice seeks to make the contextual, or tacit, knowledge about a process

or instrument explicit by means of codification (Bulkeley, 2006). However, this process is not as

straightforward as the production of best practices might make it seem because ‘expressing tacit

knowledge in formal language is often clumsy and imprecisely articulated’ (Hartley & Allison, 2002:

105). Wolman et al (1994) make a similar point in relation to the difficulty in conveying the full

picture of best practice. They report that ‘delegations from distressed cities are frequent visitors to…


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‘successful’ cities, hoping to learn from them and to emulate their success’ but ‘these visitors – and

others who herald these ‘urban success stories’ – are frequently quite unclear about the nature of

these successes and the benefits they produce’ (Wolman et al, 1994: 835).

In terms of the transferability of best practice, the OECD report on Best Practices in Local

Development (OECD, 2001) differentiates between various components of best practice and identifies

the extent to which each of these can be transferred (Figure 1). At one end of the spectrum of

components are ideas, principles and philosophies which have low visibility (since they can be

difficult for the outside to fully understand and specify) and difficult to transfer because it can be

difficult for others to make them relevant to their own situation. At the other end of the spectrum are

programmes, institutions, modes of organisation and practitioners which tend to have high visibility

and are relatively easy to understand but are not very transferable since they tend to be specific to

particular areas or contexts. According to the OECD report, it is components such as methods,

techniques, know-how and operating rules, with medium visibility, that make the most sense to

exchange or transfer. The report on Best Practices in Local Development also highlights the need to

examine who is involved in the process of transfer in order to gauge transferability of best practices. It

distinguishes between top-down transfer processes initiated by promoters (e.g. national agencies)

seeking to disseminate best practices and bottom-up processes initiated by ‘recipients’ in response to a

need that they have recognised themselves. It argues that the latter is likely to work best. This is very

much linked to the notions of demand and supply led processes of policy transfer: demand-based

policy transfer is based on the initiative and acknowledged need of a recipient administration, whilst

supply-led policy transfer is based on the initiative of the donor and the donor’s perception of the

needs of the recipient such as foreign aid initiatives (Randma-Liiv, 2005).

Planners across Europe are now routinely involved in trans-boundary cooperation networks and inter-

regional collaboration initiatives and thus subject to foreign experiences and exposed to a variety of

planning approaches from other member states (Dühr et al, 2007). Nevertheless, literature on the

Europeanization of spatial planning suggests that different policy concepts take root in different ways

across the European territory (see for example Böhme & Waterhout, 2007; Dabinett & Richardson,

2005; Giannakourou, 2005; Janin Rivolin & Faludi, 2005; Tewdwr-Jones & Williams, 2001). It is thus

unlikely that best practices will lead to the same outcomes across different European member states,

no matter how faithfully transferred.


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Figure 1. Components of local development practices and their transferability (source: OECD, 2001)

Visibility Component for exchange Transferability

Low Ideas

Principles for action

Philosophy

Low

Medium Methods

Techniques

Know-how

Operating rules

High

High Programmes

Institutions

Modes of organisation

Practitioners

Joint projects

Low

How are best practices identified? Wolman et al (2004) take a very critical view about this, arguing

that best practice in urban public policy is frequently built around perceptions without evaluation.1

They conclude that identifying best practice is often ‘an exercise in informal polling’ (p992) and argue

that the reputations of so-called best practice simply snowball as observers become self-referential.

Best practice, they suggest, may just represent ‘the manifestation of the best advertising and most

effective programmatic or municipal spin doctoring’ (p992). Benz (2007) argues that sub-national

governments in Germany are becoming increasingly active in developing (or claiming) innovative

policies, which they then try to sell as ‘success stories’ and best practices. According to Lidström

(2007: 505), ‘in this new competitive world of territorial governance, most units depict themselves as

winners’. To be highly ranked and used as a benchmark is not only a good image for the locality, but

can also attract additional money from the federal government. It is equally likely that this is also the

case in other countries and also at the EU level with sub-national governments competing for EU

funding by promoting ‘success stories’ and best practices. In so doing, they not only attract additional

national and regional funding, they can also use EU funding to partly bypass traditional structures of

domestic policy making and vertical power relations, should they so wish (Carmichael, 2005; Heinelt

& Niederhafner, 2008; Le Galès, 2002).

1 Wolman & Page (2002) also discuss the lack of evaluation of best practice. They argue that both receivers and producers of best practices have virtually no means of assessing the validity of the information they receive, and that most do not even recognize this as a problem.


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The creation and use of best practice as a means of reward and recognition for particular initiatives,

individuals, and places means that only ‘good news’ stories are disseminated, and that the sometimes

murky details of how practices were put into place (and any difficulties or failures along the way) are

obscured. Aware that best practices represent sanitised stories, practitioners often pursue their own

networks of knowledge in order to gain an understanding of the processes involved (Bulkeley, 2006).

Wolman & Page (2002) report that UK local government officials involved in urban regeneration are

sceptical about good practice documents, exemplified in the following quotes from some of their

interviewees:

“ I’ve found some of the good practice guides so simplistic that they are almost of no value”

(regeneration partnership official)

“There seems to be a lot of material promoted as good practice that wouldn’t stand the light of day if

it were seriously evaluated” (national government official, DETR)

“Everyone has to be seen as ‘succeeding’” (official from the Government Offices for the Regions)

The role of best practice

National and international best practices

Despite the proliferation of best practice examples, there appears to be some opinion in the academic

literature that the practical use and usefulness of best practices are rather limited. While a high

proportion of local authority actors agree that learning from the experience of others is important and

indicate that they engage in such activity, only a small minority of officials believes that it plays a

large or significant role in their decision-making. In a study of urban regeneration policy, Wolman &

Page (2002) for example report that officials generally find government documents and conversations

with other officials more useful for finding out what is going on than from good practice guides. The

results of their questionnaire survey suggests that the majority of officials believes that information

about other examples from the same country may have some effect on decisions within their own

authority, although few think that the effects will be ‘significant’ or ‘large’ (Table 2). However, when

questioned about the effect of examples from abroad on decisions within their own authority, most

officials believe that the effects of these examples will be either ‘little’ or ‘none’. Wolman & Page

(2002: 484) quote a member of a local authority association who asserts that ‘knowing what other

authorities are doing is a very low priority for councils’: most authorities want to do things in their

own way and not just copy what others are doing. They also quote another official who states that

‘ there are many factors that are much more important [than best practice]’ and that ‘good practices

elsewhere don’t matter that much’, particularly since ‘projects have to be very sensitive to local

circumstances’ (Wolman & Page, 2002: 495-496). Informal contacts with peers, according to Wolman


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& Page (2002), are the most trusted and useful sources of information among local government

officials, while mechanisms such as seminars, conferences and good-practice guides are less useful.

One of the most important reasons for looking at examples from elsewhere, they contend, is primarily

to gain information about what kind of proposals the government is likely to fund, rather than using

best practices as inspiration for new policy or practice.

Table 2. Opinions of local authority officials about the effects of information from elsewhere on

decisions in local authorities (source: Wolman & Page, 2002: 495-496)

From national examples From international examples

Big effect 2% 1%

A significant effect 11% 1%

Some effect 69% 21%

Very little effect 16% 42%

No effect 1% 35%

Number of respondents 288 286

Wolman & Page (2002) conclude that, despite the enormous effort that has been devoted to

disseminating ‘good practice’, their findings throw cold water over activities concerning the

identification and dissemination of best practice, at least in the area of urban regeneration. They

acknowledge that the same is not necessarily true for other areas of policy, although there seems little

reason to think that the situation may be much different in the area of spatial planning. They also

conclude that, even when well resourced and pursued actively, the effects of spreading lessons and

‘good practice’ are not very well understood by those involved in the processes of dissemination and

that this observation is unlikely to be unique to the area of urban regeneration alone. Similarly,

Bulkeley (2006: 1041) concludes that the impacts and implications of disseminating best practice on

urban sustainability remain poorly understood. According to Wolman & Page (2002: 498) it is ‘much

easier to offer a compendium of practices and ideas and leave it up to the recipient to decide which is

the most appealing than to offer an evaluation of what works best, let alone what works best for highly

differentiated audiences’.

The relevance of best practices for Central and eastern Europe

While current spatial planning activities in Europe’s newer member states are focusing on broadly

similar issues to those in Western Europe, there are nevertheless a number of important differences

between spatial planning in central and eastern Europe and in Western Europe (UNECE, 2008). These

include lower levels of trust in the role of government (van Dijk, 2002; Mason, 1995), the position of


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planning which is generally weaker in central and eastern Europe (Maier, 1998) and the fact that

spatial planning has had a longer history in Western Europe (Adams, 2008). Each of these factors

means that best practices from western Europe are likely to be of less relevance for central and eastern

Europe. Two brief examples of east-west transfer of best practice (below) help to illustrate this point.

In the first example, the development of St. Petersburg’s strategic plan was based on experience of the

western cities, and the model of the planning process was borrowed from Barcelona and adapted to the

local conditions (Jounda, 2004). This was mainly due to the fact that financial and technical assistance

was provided by USAID during the first stages of developing St. Petersburg’s strategic plan and a

condition of this assistance was that the strategy should be formulated according to western

democratic standards. The example of Barcelona, with an established system of planning, was chosen

as the model to follow, and officials from St. Petersburg were brought into contact with Barcelona’s

planners involved in preparing the city’s strategic plan, as well as officials from various other cities in

Europe and the USA. However, neither the process of preparing the strategic plan for St. Petersburg

nor the end result itself (i.e. the strategic plan) bore few similarities to Barcelona’s best practice

model, although inspiration from Barcelona (or influence of foreign financial and technical assistance)

did result in the introduction of a participatory approach (ibid).

The second example concerns Wroclaw (Poland) and Riga (Latvia), where two similar projects were

funded by the German Federal Environment Agency, primarily drawing on German best practices, to

try to establish German-style public transport executives (Verkehrsverbünden) or similar structures as

a way of promoting more integrated public transport operation in the two cities and the regions around

them. The intention behind the transfer of good practice was more coordinated public transport

services and timetables, common information, communication and marketing for transport services,

and integrated ticketing across different transport operators. However, the public transport situation

was (and still is) quite different in the two cities compared to German cities. The experiences and

outcomes of the two projects were quite different and, in both cases, direct transfers of German best

practice did not occur (Stead et al, 2008).

Clearly, west east transfers of best practices are complex and certainly not merely a matter of copying

or emulation: successful transfer also involves processes of learning and adaptation. Former

communist countries in Europe have unique features that restrict the direct applicability of imported

tools and methods, require their ‘customization’, or demand entirely new ones (Nedović-Budić, 2001).

Substantial differences in political and administrative cultures across Europe reduce the relevance and

applicability of best practices and their transfer from west to east. More specific to spatial planning,

distinct planning cultures and social or welfare models in European member states mean that different

policies or practices may result in very different outcomes depending on the context. The notions of


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path-dependency and path-shaping may also have implications for the effects of policies or practices

in different countries.

Conclusions – a reappraisal of best practice

The previous two sections of this paper have identified a number of issues and concerns related to the

validity and role of best practice. In terms of validity, there are concerns about issues of transferability,

especially between dissimilar situations (e.g. ‘old’ to ‘new’ member states of the EU), the lack of

detail that best practices are able to convey (and the fact that some are sanitised, good news stories

without details of problems, difficulties or failures along the way), the lack of evaluation of many

examples of best practice and a certain degree of distrust or scepticism in best practices on the part of

practitioners. In terms of the role of best practice, there are concerns about the proliferation of

examples and the overload of information for policy officials, the low level of impact that these

examples often have, especially in the case of international examples (compared to examples from the

same country) and the lack of a wide and systematic assessment of the impacts and implications of

disseminating best practice on policy-making. Given these issues and concerns, a reappraisal of the

status and use of best practice is perhaps necessary.

First, it is time to reappraise the importance attached to best practice in policies, programmes and

projects, particularly at the European level. There are substantial social, economic and institutional

differences between EU member states but there is little recognition of the fact that policy options

need to be differentiated: the underlying assumption of many European policies and programmes is

that best practices are equally applicable and effective in another setting. A study of the way in which

best practice examples of spatial planning are used across Europe (building for example on the work

of Holman & Page, 2002) would be instructive and help to inform the way in which best practice

examples are used in European policies and programmes.

Second, it is time to reappraise the way in which best practice examples are presented and consider

whether it would be better to differentiate between various components of best practice according to

the extent to these can be transferred (see also Figure 1). Because of the diversity of member states,

institutions, planning instruments and cultures, it is perhaps more appropriate to consider a move away

from the idea of best practice examples and refer instead simply to examples of practice, which policy

officials can draw on and adapt to their own circumstances (as advocated in OECD, 2001). Similar

sentiments are expressed by Nedović-Budić (2001: 49), who recommends that planners in central and

eastern Europe should ‘stay away from any automatic transfer of Western methods and models, and…

consider what is appropriate to keep from their own traditions’.


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Third, there is substantial merit in carrying out more detailed examinations of the transferability of

spatial planning methods, techniques, operating rules, instruments, programmes and so on. Detailed,

systematic work is lacking in this area and research in this area would provide an interesting

contribution to debates in both academia and in practice. Related to this, research on the processes of

transfer of spatial planning methods, techniques, operating rules, instruments, programmes and so on

would be very instructive, particularly in cases where examples have been transferred between

dissimilar situations (e.g. between ‘old’ to ‘new’ member states of the EU). Such research might

include theories and concepts from the policy transfer (and related) literature as well as literature on

planning cultures (Sanyal, 2005), social or welfare models (Nadin & Stead, 2008) and path-

dependency/path-shaping (see Stead, 2008).

Fourth, further research on the way in which the same best practice can take root in different ways in

different settings would be instructive. This might for example draw on the work carried as part of

ESPON project 2.3.1 on the application and effects of the ESDP in European member states, which

examined how various policy concepts from the ESDP (e.g. polycentric spatial development, urban-

rural partnerships) had been adapted to suit different regional and national contexts, and how these

concepts were elaborated in policies and programmes at these levels.

Finally, another direction for future work related to the area of best practice might be to examine and

test the extent to which there are common principles across all planning systems, irrespective of

differences in the economic and social situation, planning cultures, social or welfare models and so on.

This might build on the report of the UNECE (2008), which proposes that various principles

(democracy, subsidiarity, participation, policy integration, proportionality, and the precautionary

approach) are applicable and desirable for all planning systems.

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Governance in Germany. Regional & Federal Studies 17(4) 421-436.


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